The present invention relates to improvement in tracer control equipment which performs tracer control in response to a displacement signal from a tracer head tracing the surface of a model, and more particularly to tracer control equipment which is capable of preventing a cutter from biting into a workpiece at a point of a sudden change in the configuration of the model such as a corner portion or the like.
In tracing, when a point of sudden change in the configuration of a model, such as a corner or the like, is traced at the same tracing speed as that for other portions, a cutter can bite into a workpiece, which results in lower cutting accuracy. It is a general practice in the prior art to attach a potential wire to a model made of an insulating material in the vicinity of a sudden-change point in the configuration of the model so that when a metallic stylus makes contact with the potential wire, a closed circuit is formed and deceleration control is performed, preventing a reduction of the cutting accuracy at the sudden-change point in the model configuration.
However, the above prior art example has the following defects caused by the necessity of attaching the potential wire to the model.
(1) Since the potential wire has a thickness, the model surface to which the potential wire is attached cannot be traced accurately.
(2) Attaching the potential wire on the model introduces the possibility that the model will be damaged.
(3) Inaccurate deceleration control can result due to bad contact.
Besides this, there has been proposed control equipment of the type in which data representing a deceleration region is prestored in a memory and the deceleration control is performed on the basis of the data and the results of position detection by position sensors in the X-, Y- and Z-axis directions. However, this control equipment calls for prestoring new data indicating the deceleration region in the memory for each of plural models of different configurations, and hence has the defect of involving cumbersome operations.